In an interview with the national television program *Vesti*, the spokesman asserted that this is territory of the Russian Federation; therefore, there is nothing to discuss.

  “It makes no difference whether it is 0.5 percent or one-hundredth. It is the Russian Federation. There is nothing to discuss here,” he said, reiterating that Moscow maintains its claim to the region’s entire territory, regardless of how much remains under Ukrainian control.

  This week, President Vladimir Putin stated that around 11 percent of the Donetsk People’s Republic’s territory remains under Ukrainian control and assured that Russian forces could reclaim it ahead of the timelines projected by Kyiv and various European countries.

  Previously, the Russian president had maintained that the Donbas issue is not limited to territory alone but is linked to the population and the creation of conditions for lasting peace.

  Putin denounced that “plans should never have been drawn up to organize concentration camps for the inhabitants of Donbas and Crimea.”

  “People should not have been crushed by tanks, targeted by missiles, shot down in aircraft, or burned alive while unarmed,” the leader recalled regarding the onset of the bloodshed, holding the Kyiv regime responsible for atrocities committed against the Russian-speaking civilian population of those regions.

  The Russian president emphasized that those events occurred solely because the population was Russian—”by nationality and by spirit.”

jdt/arc/gfa